


The Strong's Duty

by SugMak



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Crisis on earth x, F/M, Holocaust references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 13:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12865908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugMak/pseuds/SugMak
Summary: A peek into Oliver's mind as the Nazis dropped Earth-X Felicity in front of him





	The Strong's Duty

**Author's Note:**

> I had no plans of writing anything, but I'm dying for angsty stuff about the Crisis on Earth X crossover event - and this one moment especially - and it's not coming fast enough (no doubt because people who are interested in writing it are, you know, taking their time to write a real story) so I had to write something myself. I'm mediocre as a fiction writer (though a great nonfiction writer!) so, I mean, hope it's at least somewhat satisfying?

"Guard!"

Horror slowly grew in the pit of Oliver's stomach as he grasped the meaning of not-Quentin's words. A flash of striped uniform, a gold star patch, and the realization that he was expected to kill a prisoner struck. The gnawing sense of dread grew as his mind raced to figure out his next move.

The figure was pushed to her knees in front of him and it still took him a moment, distracted as he was by trying to solve this problem, to catch her face. She kept her eyes down, face dirty, light brown hair loosely tied back, resignation in her eyes when they briefly darted to him. His stomach dropped through the floor and all the air was sucked from the room. For a brief moment his mask slipped entirely. Wholly unable to maintain the facade of indifference, he felt his lips part surprise. His brief, pained, thunderstruck expression went unnoticed by those around him.

Felicity knelt before him in a dingy uniform he had dimly recognized from half-remembered history textbooks before seeing them up close earlier that night. Every fiber of his being recoiled at the image of Felicity dressed in the same garb as the starving, hollow-eyed, ghost-like images his younger high school self had dismissed as half a world and half a century removed from anything he needed to care about.

His only comfort, amid the horror in which he'd found himself when he'd awoken in what had been unmistakably a concentration camp, was that _at least Felicity wasn't there._ He'd stood in front of that ditch, waiting to die, and still could only think _thank god Felicity isn't here right now._ Earlier, his eyes had caught on the inscription above the camp: Arbeit Macht Friei. He couldn't help but remember the year before, what felt like a lifetime ago, at the Mayor's office holiday party.

_"I made it weird there," she'd said over by the drinks table. "Sorry for, you know, making it weird."_

_She had been fiddling with her phone, and he caught a glimpse of her sending her mother a menorah emoji and a smiley face before jerking his gaze away to give her privacy. "Sorry this year's party is so Christmas-specific", he'd said._

_She have him a small smile. "Well the last time you threw a nondenominational winter holiday party during Hanukkah I ended up in a gas chamber, so maybe it's for the best," she joked._

_Oliver swore under his breath. "I don't think I ever put those two together. Jesus."_

_Felicity raised her eyebrow. "You didn't? All that was missing was the inscription 'Arbeit Macht Frei over the entrance." He felt his face making what she called his 'I don't get that reference' face so she expounded. "'Work makes you free?' The inscription over Nazi concentration camps? Did you sleep through_ all _of high school?"_

_"How does your brain still remember those kinds of details from textbooks?" he asked._

_She shrugged. "There are a few things that loom so large in our history it's hammered into every Jewish person's memory. I guess Arbeit Macht Frei is one of them. Maybe not - it's not like my part of Vegas had a whole lot of other Jews for me to ask."_

As his eyes had caught the inscription above the camp, he remembered thanking any and every deity that existed that his Felicity wasn't there. He remembered quickly scanning the inhabitants of the camp around him and fervently thanking those same gods that there was no version of her there. Maybe she hadn't even been born. Maybe in this nightmare world Donna Smoak and Noah Cuttler never even met.

But oh god he should have known this hellish universe wouldn't be so kind. He heard her speak, her voice trembling in the face of her certain death, but not cowed - never cowed - and oh god in this universe where he was a monster, she was giving her meager food rations to children. He wanted to rip off this disgusting uniform and scrub his skin until it bled. He wanted to drop to his knees and howl. Instead, he tried to expel his emotions in an exasperated sigh and numbly picked up the pistol he was handed, his mind racing while his whole being focused on the woman in front of him and his own attempt to keep his facade in tact for as long as possible. With every cell in his body screaming at him, he stepped forward and aimed the pistol at her head. She trembled, but didn't flinch. Didn't scream. Didn't spit at him in disgust or glare daggers. She just closed her eyes, waiting for him to shoot her - just the thought made him fight to keep his hand steady - then looked up at him, resignation in her eyes. He lingered for a moment more than he would have liked to plan his next three moves, before spinning around and aiming the gun straight at not-Quentin's head.

When not-Quentin chuckled in the most un-Quentin like way he could have imagined he quickly redirected his plan and saw Felicity flinch, then duck out of the way out of the corner of his eye as the bullets started flying. When the room was still but for her harsh breathing, he hurried over to her, him still in full Nazi regalia, her in her concentration camp uniform. Unsurprisingly, she cringed away from him. He handed her the machine gun and she looked at him with confusion and suspicion.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, almost demanded, sounding like his Felicity for the very first time.

He spoke in the only language this world seemed to understand. "It's the strong's duty to protect the weak. Take it and go." _You're the strongest of us all,_ he thought as she fled the room.


End file.
